How much Bitcoin does the US hold, and where did it come from?
The US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will initially be funded by Bitcoin forfeited to the Treasury, which controls an estimated 198,109 Bitcoin forfeited or seized in criminal cases.
The US government currently holds around 198,109 Bitcoin worth $17.7 billion, according to data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, a stash that it built mainly through seizures and forfeitures in criminal cases.
A portion of that Bitcoin (BTC) will eventually form part of the country’s “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” that President Donald Trump signed into existence with his March 6 executive order, which says the reserve will hold any Bitcoin “forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings or in satisfaction of any civil money penalty.”
The order also tasks federal agencies with figuring out how much forfeited Bitcoin they hold so it can be added to the cache. While the industry awaits the official audits, Cointelegraph has gathered a timeline of some of the biggest events that made the US the world’s largest nation-state holder of Bitcoin.
